MELBOURNE, June 18:
An Indian taxi driver was attacked and racially abused and his car smashed, as a group of baseball bat wielding youth went about attacking and robbing cab drivers in Melbourne suburbs.
The gang ambushed and robbed five taxis in separate incidents in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
Attackers wearing balaclavas and armed with baseball bats pulled up in two stolen cars and attacked the drivers at Sunshine, Brooklyn and Laverton North areas last night.
Harpreet Singh was driving his taxi through Sunshine suburb when his car was rammed from behind and a second car pulled up abruptly in front of him.
He said four men with baseball bats got out of the car in front of him and began smashing the driver-side window.
“It was terrifying. They were smashing the car and hitting me with the bats also,” he said.
“I leaned to the left side (of the driver’s seat) to avoid the baseball bats hitting me (but) one guy punched me in the face. They didn’t say anything to me, they just smashed the car and straight away asked for the money,” he was quoted as saying by the Herald Sun.
Singh said he had already handed over USD 150 cash and his phone when one of the men punched him and the group sped off in the two cars.
He suffered a bloodied lip in the attack while another driver was hospitalised with a broken arm.
A report in ABC quoted the owner of the taxi as saying that the driver was taunted as he was beaten with baseball bats.
“They hit very badly you know, abusing him, you know, saying you’re Indian, go back to your country,” owner Sunny Singh told a radio channel here. (PTI)
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